Buckeyefaninks

All:

I have driven for two years now at HPDE's while leaving my active handling on. I have gotten pretty good at the events, am now in with the advanced students in the PCA of Kansas City, get lots of compliments, and am polite / safe.

To be a truly good do I need to forgo my electronic nannies and just drive?

My active handling rarely kicks on at the track, and I'm good at controlling / correcting cars in events on iracing.com (computer) but I dont have the actual experience of driving w/o active handling at the track.

I'm troubled by this whole thing... I dont earn a ton of money, and putting the car in the wall would certainly be a loss it would take years to recover from financially...

What do you all do? What do you think?

Steve

Katech_Zach

Check your ego at the door and leave it on. You are not Andy Pilgrim. Save your car.

Aardwolf

My car doesn't have it and I prefer it that way.

xsiveone

I agree with you on half of this statement. I agree that you should check your ego at the door. I don't follow when you say that you're getting good at the events. Are you saying that you're fast with the active handling on? I personally think that your ego is what is keeping you from turning off your active handling and learning how to drive your car without it.

What I would do is put yourself in a more novice group and turn off the AH. Learn how to drive the car. Start out slow and build up to it, so you don't put yourself or your car at risk. Check that ego and don't be pressured into feeling like you have to be fast. That's what DE's are for IMO. To learn how to drive your car. Not to impress people on how fast you are around the track or which group you're in.

.02¢

gkmccready

Do some autocross events with AH off. Get used to what the car does. Then try it at a high speed event like an HPDE when you have confidence it what you can do, and you know what the car will do.

The Corvette is my first car with ABS, let alone active handling...

RUN4CVR

I hear you man, leave the AH on. At the end of the day its not worth risking the damage despite how much you feel like "maybe I'm not really learning to drive the car."

I've internally struggled with this myself and even have gone out during some sessions with it turned off, with the intent of finding the limit. But as soon as I see someone I want to catch or someone catching up to me, I switch it back on.

I do use the A/H to gauge where I think I can be smoother though. If it kicks in on certain parts of the track I try to improve on the next lap to see if I can drive cleaner so it doesnt trigger.

I agree with the consensus, leave the ego at the door and have fun. Its safer.

Short-Throw

You just answered your own question. Leave A/H on......for now.

Easier said than done, but try to get yourself in a skidpad car, or on a skidpad period to learn car control. You may be doing great in iRacing but your real car does not have a reset button. You can run the Z06 extremely fast with A/H engaged. If you drive a smooth line it will not come on as often as you think.

It should be the goal of every driver to handle a car with no nannies. The downside to leaving A/H on is it can become a crutch and you may not even realize it's engaging. Turn it off and the car swings out more than you've ever expected and it will be hard not to panic.

xsiveone's suggestion to run in a slower group is a good one. There are always safer, slower corners on tracks where you can induce under/oversteer. If you want to get faster, learn this first. As you increase speed, you reduce allowable reaction time. Forget your lap times for now.

If you ever have the opportunity to run in the rain, embrace it. You will learn a lot more in one wet day than 10 dry ones.

Mike

fatbillybob

I think using all the AH modes is just another tool to learn to use. Why fear it embrace it. Recently I just learned how to use these tools. Even with the full babysitter on it will not save you from a dumb mistake. Lets say all tools off = no safety margin. comp mode = you can make a small bobble. normal start-up mode you can make the same bobble while drinking your starbucks be slow to react and still recover. I bet you mentally think you need AH more than you really do. When you are ready to explore you limits you will do so. Until then we are all out just to have fun anyway.

SouthernSon

When your brakes get very hot and smelly from trying to correct your maneuvers, turn it off. Until then, slowly increase your aggressiveness.

Some tracks seem to fight with your A/H more than others. As you begin to feel you are fighting the A/H, turn it off (except wet conditions). I always leave mine on in wet and always turn it off in dry.

kmagvette

When it is raining I use all the electronic nannies I can find. Driving it the rain will show you so much about car control. Also, you typically get the track to yourself in the wet.

You will know when it is time to progress to Competitive Mode then onto AH off. There are two main indicators (my humble opinion). 1) You are smooth in the corners and you feel AH intruding on your experience. 2) Still smooth, and you are toasting your brakes/rotors. Under these circumstances it is time to consider reducing electronic assistance, fully understanding that if you do screw up bad you will be on your own.

If you are engaging Traction Control and not AH, on a road course, then you still need to leave everything on.

xsiveone

I want to say that I think that you're risking your car if you're running in the advanced group. I don't care if you're running with AH. That's a fast group and anything can happen.

I definitely agree with Mike's suggestion. I don't know why everyone is so afraid to run in the rain. The same things happen in the rain as it does on dry pavement, but it happens at slower speeds. I also love driving in snow. Not with the Corvette, but with other cars. Every time it snows, I go out instead of stay in. Driving in the snow is just like the rain, but things happen at even slower speeds.

I also like the idea of autox or a skidpad. You have to be comfortable with getting the car out of shape and getting it back into control. Autox or skidpad's will let you do this at much slower speeds. If you spin it out, it's no big deal. You don't want to be learning how to recover your car by going through a high speed corner like the Kink at Road America.

Since you don't want to risk your car, have you considered buying a cheaper track day car? Check your ego on this one as well. You don't have to have the nicest and fastest car out there. Just get something cheap with rwd. Something that you can afford to walk away from if you wad it up.

sperkins

I say it depends on where you want to go with the whole track thing. If you want to just go out and have a blast making laps, then leave it on. If you hope to someday go as far as getting a dedicated track car and/or competing with the one you have now, then you will have to turn the nannies off to learn the limits and become a better driver. You're the only one that knows the answer so don't be intimidated if others question what you're doing. Ultimately, it's all about having fun - and fun can be had either way you choose.

longdaddy

it is amusing that several people here are implying that AH is some sort of an insurance against wrecking your car. it may decrease the risk in some situations, but by the same token, why not limit yourself to 3000 rpm or only do the tracks that have ample runoff or never go to HPDE if it looks like it might rain etc.

if you chose to run with it on (as I did for a long time), don't be duped into thinking it is some sort of bulletproof safety blanket - it's not.

AU N EGL

Leave it on or turn it off? the answer is YES

Leave it ON to learn how to be smooth and consistent.

Lap after lap after lap hitting the same marks each and every lap AND not have AH or TQ light show up on your dash. No AH/TC is not an insurance to prevent you from crashing. It helps you learn smoothness and consistency.

Then after at least 10 HPDE events, maybe.


How does one learn to go fast?


Smoothness and consistency



to really learn car control, handling and counter steering, turn it OFF.


However, back to smoothness and consistency is your goal

Jason

Ditto.

AlwaysInBoost

I agree with the checking your ego at the door!

On the street I usually keep everything on. No need to turn anything off because on the street you aren't pushing the car hard enough to activate any of the electrical gadgets.

When it comes to the track however I prefer to turn everything off and just drive the car. That probably goes against what a lot of people on here do, but I've tracked other cars that don't have any type of traction control devices what-so-ever and never had an issue.

Independent1

Lots of great advice from people with a lot of knowledge and experience.

All I would say, if you can't afford to lose it don't take the risk.

I really like the idea of the auto-cross or skidpad to learn to develop car control. They were great suggestions.

FWIW, I have heard of instances where AH actually caused accidents because it engaged at the wrong time. My theory is that the AH system operating parameters were never designed to take into consideration people running their cars in HPDEs. You may be operating with a false sense of security by thinking it will protect you when in fact it could cause you problems.

If you can't afford to lose the vette, have you ever considered getting a "lesser car" to take to the track? For example, a mazda miata or something along those lines. What about an older C4 prepped racer?

KBRVETTE93

Enjoy going fast with the nanny on, if you worry about the car.

Aardwolf

My point of view is that I love to drive and experience the track. I don't want a computer to experience it for me.

Bill Dearborn

Without riding with you it is hard to give advice. I started doing HPDEs before Active Handling was available on cars. I didn't get a car with Active Handling until I purchased my Z in 03. At that time I left the Active Handling on for several events to see what it would do. 98% of the time I never saw an activation message on the DIC of felt it do anything at all. The only time I felt it activate is during low speed autocrosses where the brakes were applied quite forcefully (car feels like it is being hit in the side with a very large sledge hammer). I firmly believe if used as a teaching tool AH can help a novice driver quickly improve since it provides a direct feedback through the seat of the pants when a driver does something wrong. The less AH interferes with or assists the driver's inputs the fewer mistakes that driver is making. If a student works to reduce the number of times AH activates when driving aggressively they will become become better drivers. If as you say it is rarely interfering with you it may be time to turn it off and see how you do without it on. To start, drive at 8/10 of what you had been doing before and work your way up. Unless you are one of those few people who are a top driver (very few of us are in that category) you probably won't know you turned it off.

A while ago there was a video on one of the C6 forums where a guy was trying to show the disadvantages of active handling. First, he drove the car around the track without AH and kept track of his lap times then he repeated the run with AH on while keeping track of his lap time. His time with AH was slower than the time without AH but he was a terrible driver and was much safer with AH on. He overdrove all the corners and had a lot of understeer on corner entry with power on oversteer on corner exit. His poor driving was obvious in both runs and it was obvious that AH was working like hell to correct his poor driving when it was turned on. He was the type of driver I wouldn't want on the track with me as he was an accident looking for someplace to happen.

Bill